Emotional safety is patient safety

A growing body of research on patients’ and families’ understanding and conceptualisation of patient safety1 2 begs the question of how and why we, in healthcare and the field of patient safety and quality, conceptualise patient safety as a domain separate from patient-centredness and patient experience.3 In this issue, Archer et al contribute to this body of work.4 The authors explored patients’ conceptualisation of safety across three UK teaching hospital inpatient specialty wards in a qualitative interview study with a purposive sample of 24 English-speaking patients, 8 each from gerontology (medicine for the elderly), elective surgery and maternity (postnatal) wards. The authors found that patients in their study conceptualise safety as ‘feeling safe’ rather than ‘being safe’, and present a model of actions (performed, received, shared and observed) at the levels of self (patient), staff, family and friends, and the organisation...
Source: Quality and Safety in Health Care - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Editorials Source Type: research